Decide On Joy
Power of Unconditional Love
Hello and welcome to Decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm Jim Covalt.
Pjae:And my name is Rev. Dr. P. J. Stanley. Thanks for being here today.
Jim:And first, as usual, maybe just a little, this is a podcast about some basic principles of, of new thought and how they work out in daily life. And also, as usual, just a brief thing about what, in fact, new thought
Pjae:is. And so it's kind of a misnomer because it really isn't about having a new thought in terms of thoughts in the world because it's actually ancient wisdom. Everything has been here. All that needs to be known is pretty much known. You know, we're inventing and we're discovering all the time. But. Wisdom has always been around and so new thought is really about you as an individual, as a person in your life, being able to change your mind about something and have a new thought about it. That's the only way we move forward into the life that we, that we want by design on intentionally on purpose is to question our thoughts and change our mind about things. So that's what we, that's what the challenge is when you come to our center. Is we're teaching you how to question what you know and believe to be true so that you're actually living the life of, that you choose to live and not the life someone of someone else told you was only available to you.
Jim:And today's topic is the power of unconditional love. Yes. And that's a big one. It
Pjae:is a big
Jim:one. And, and I know Peter, you actually. written a book about that. I have. It was
Pjae:what I certainly did a my thesis for my doctor of divinity was on the transformational power of love. I've used it in my life, understanding what unconditional love can do for myself personally, and for relationships. So it's just one of my favorite topics to talk about, you probably have to cut me off. Because I'll be going on and on about it. But I do want to start with, with what I'm, what I, what I mean when I say unconditional love, so that I kind of give you a little bit of a, of a definition of that. And when I'm talking about unconditional love, what I'm talking about is affection without any any limitations. It's loving without conditions. I'll love you when, as soon as you change, as soon as this thing happens. That's when love will happen. But love, unconditional love has no conditions. It has no bounds, and it is unchanging. It's, it's, It's the love that, that which is greater than ourselves. Some of us call it God, some of us call it spirit, I call it George, whatever you call that which is greater than yourself, that is the love that, that that spirit has for us. And you can think about that, it's boundless, because if you think about some of the crazy things that we have done, some of the, some of the hateful things we've actually done because we've been hurt that, that, that entity, that, that spirituality is still with us and loving us and seeing beyond our behaviors. And so that's what unconditional love is. And
Jim:it's, there's certainly a, Overlap, but it's not exactly the same as what you're talking about when you say you're in love with someone.
Pjae:Yeah, no, that's a different thing. Being in love with someone because you come in and out of love. How many loves have we all had in our lives? That is physical. It's a, it's a, it's emotional. There is a, this magnetic attraction. And so that kind of love is actually more about attraction.
Jim:But it could also be.
Pjae:It could. It could develop into and become, become unconditional love and it could have been from the very start when we talk about what unconditional love is that you'll have to be the judge of whether that's what that is or not and whether you are being actually loved unconditionally. I think we are aware of when someone is loving us unconditionally. Only when we behave in a way that's, you know, that's acceptable to them and that's not unconditional love. And you, you know, I do, we personally do the same thing to other people. You know, you're not behaving the way that I want you to behave. You're not showing up. the way that I want you to show up. So so the love I'm feeling for you is conditional conditional on, on, on how you show up the way I perceive you should show up. And that's not unconditional love.
Jim:Yeah, I think that's a tactic that sometimes parents use unwisely. Unwisely.
Pjae:Yeah, I'm glad you said that it is unwise because I think that's the first opportunity that we as individuals get to feel and know what unconditional love is. It, it normally comes from our parents but, but in their, in their ability or their desire to keep us from getting hurt they tend to withdraw that love based on our behavior. And that's how we feel. We, they really don't. We really don't. Withdraw the love. The love is actually what we feel as children, that they don't love us anymore. And there's nothing that children want more than for their children to love them. That's, we want our parents love and acceptance and so, so we try to bring our behaviors in line with what their expectation is. And then we get the idea that love. is based on behaviors. And we, if we only act right, that would be lovable. And that's not the case at all. I believe that just showing up as a human being, because what we believe here at Harmony Spiritual Center and in New Thought is that we are individualized expressions of the one love. So we come to the planet deserving of unconditional love and able to love others unconditionally. We come that way. We learn different things. We learn, again, from our parents, from our peer groups, that we're not going to be accepted in the peer group unless we bring our behaviors around to what the majority feels like that's what's acceptable. And so we tend to think that that's what unconditional, that's what love is. But it's not. It's not. It's not love. It's not unconditional love. And so, I want to give a couple of examples, if I may of what unconditional love would look like. You, you mentioned parents, and I think that the, the love that, That mothers and fathers feel, and I think particularly mothers, not that fathers don't feel it, but there's something about the connection between a mother and the baby because she's had it. It's been growing in her womb for a long time. That there is, and I certainly speak for myself and I know the women that I know that have children, there is not one thing, not one thing, and that includes walking up to me and shooting me, that would have me stop loving my child. Children. Now, the difference between loving someone unconditionally and being in relationship with someone are two different things. You can love someone unconditionally and not be in relationship with them because you're not, you're not in. You're, you're, you're not allowing unacceptable behavior in terms of how you wish to be treated. It doesn't stop you from loving them. It just stops you from having a relationship with them. So those are two different points. And it's kind of hard to understand that. But unconditional love means that you're saying that you're okay with me and I'm going to love you. I'm just not going to hang out with you because I'm okay with you being who you are. But I'm not okay with being mistreated, okay? So I'm not asking you to change. I'm saying you're fine with who you are. I love you exactly how you are. I'm going to step away from this because I'm not going to be mistreated. And whatever, whatever you decide is how you want to be treated. So those are the things that we get to do. But I've gone on to talk about what unconditional love is. What I want to talk about is the power of that. And so I've kind of gone on a little bit about what it is, just so you can get what I'm saying. But what is the power of unconditional love? And here's, I'm going to give you a couple of stories. Did you have any questions before I step into this interview? No, go. Go. So this is a story that I, I read some time ago, and it was in, I don't know if it was a book that someone had written with some of these, I don't even know if it was Anlanders or if it was Dear Abby, doesn't matter, but it was clearly sometime in the fifties. It was a story about a woman who was upset with her husband, and she felt like the love had gone out of her relationship, and so she'd walked, she'd talked with, she'd written a letter to Ann to ask her what to do. It seems that she, you know, her husband would come home from work, and would just flop down on the couch, and she'd have a drink prepared, and he would drink, and she would say, Dinner's ready and he'd come to the dinner table and would eat and then go back to sitting on the couch watching television. And she felt like the love had gone out of her relationship. So she asked, Anne, how do I get my husband to love me? And Anne Landers response was, Love him. And the woman was not clear about that and she said, You just, you have to love him regardless of what he's doing and his behavior. Just show up with your love. That's it. And so what that ended up being for this woman was she stopped having expectations. Because essentially what she was saying was, well, I cooked dinner for you, so you should do this for me. I did that for you, so you should do this for me. So she started doing things for her husband without expectation of anything in return. Just having dinner ready, sitting down at the table with him, doing the whatever it was, and just allowing him to be who he was. Eventually, he just noticed that, because she wasn't nagging him, she wasn't asking for anything in return, and he started having conversations with her at the table. He started not going to just sit in front of the television, but be around her. He just changed based on how she was showing up. He was able to show up differently himself. And so, that's one idea. One example of how I know you just show up because unconditional love doesn't have any expectations of anyone else Then I'm gonna step outside that story and come back to a point that I made When I said because you love someone you're doesn't mean you have to be in a relationship with someone. So these decisions that you make about whether you're going to love someone in condition, unconditionally and stay in the relationship is based on how you feel, what you feel is acceptable about how you wish to be treated. One thing I know for sure is that you do not have the right To change who someone is or to even attempt who someone is or how they're supposed to love you. People love you the way they love you and it's either acceptable to you or it is not acceptable to you. That is it. That is it. So one of the examples of that that I can share with you and the reason why I want to make that clear It's because with my first relationship, my very first love was my high school sweetheart. Once we got married and he was starting to have some issues, and you know, everybody has issues, everybody has stories he became abusive. He started using drugs, became physically abusive, and I never stopped loving him. But I did step out of the relationship because I wasn't going to stick around and show my kid, my children, that that was okay to be treated this way. It was not. So, he has passed away at this point, but I never ever stopped loving him or stopped speaking with him or stopped talking with him about the children, nothing, because I always loved him and still do to this day. That's how it works. And if that's kind of hard to understand, I understand, I get that. But that's just the power of what love can do. But also loving yourself as well. So that you decide whether or not The relationship and the love you're receiving or the behaviors you're receiving in the relationship is enough for you to be in relationship. You get to make those decisions on both sides. Everyone gets to make that decision.
Jim:Right. Mostly we've been talking about unconditional love in terms of people you're
Pjae:in relations with,
Jim:does it apply on a wider
Pjae:scale? Thank you for asking.
Jim:To everyone?
Pjae:It absolutely does. And that's, again, you know, these are, these are just, these are high level concepts. But what happens and again, I can only talk about what what happens for me is understanding what unconditional love is Means that I get to look and here's how I do it I look at everyone that I see And I see who they are Which means everyone that is born is on this planet Is a child of god George whatever you're calling that which is greater than yourself. So they come here worthy of that Now The behaviors that they pick up and decide to, and who they decide to be and how they decide to show up, that's all, that's all their choice to make. When I look at someone I can look beyond the behaviors to see who they really are at heart. Who we all are. Which is capable, capable of love. Born with the, with the right to, to, to love and be loved and have all that they want. All of us are born with that right. And I, I see that in you. The additional thing that I can do is look past the behavior, see who you are, bless and release you. Walk away. I don't have to, again, neither do you, have to be in relationship with someone to be able to see who they are at their core. That people are not their behavior. You are not your behaviors. You are the person who is born with, born with, Inalienable rights, the rights of a human being to be loved. That's who you are and that's what I see when I look at you.
Jim:Yeah, not, not necessarily an easy thing because we automatically respond to people's behaviors.
Pjae:We absolutely do. We have, we have trigger points. All of us do. We have trigger points and we have behaviors that we think are necessary. I, I, we get into conversations a lot with people. There was, I can't remember if this was something I'd seen on television or an interview. I can't remember. But the person was saying that he, he didn't understand how anyone could be homeless. And the response to that point was the person said, Well, that's because you've never been in a situation where you didn't have money. There's always been something or someone around you in your life that could help you. So you, just because you have never been homeless doesn't mean that there aren't people who are genuinely homeless. For whatever, or, or, or, What's the term that we're using now? It's not even homeless. It's unhoused.
Jim:Unhoused. It is.
Pjae:It's unhoused. And so because I'm, I've never been unhoused doesn't mean I can't understand and have empathy for someone who is. And so that's what we have to do. Because people aren't showing up the way we know how to show up doesn't mean we aren't supposed to have empathy for how they are showing up and how they are living and do whatever it's ours to do. For them, or for the situation, if that is something you desire to do. We can't help everyone. We simply can't. We're limited with our resources. But you pick and choose. The very least we can do, is to not name them, or not shame them, and not say, oh my god, why are you like this? They simply are like this. And you love them anyway. Regardless of the behaviors that are showing up. That is what is our work to do. That's the work to do And that's a decision we make to love somebody unconditionally
Jim:Okay That's probably a good place to stop probably this episode Thank you all for joining us and we'll see you next time